


Mr Vandemar's Latest Predilection

by Unsentimentalf



Category: Neverwhere - All Media Types, Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 03:57:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unsentimentalf/pseuds/Unsentimentalf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After all these years, Mr Vandemar still has the capacity to surprise Mr Croup on occasion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mr Vandemar's Latest Predilection

All cities create their own dark places, in the narrow passages, underneath the quaint cobbles, in the shadows cast by the tall buildings.

A city as old as London is a patchwork of black and greys, with the occasional glimpse of sunlight. Nowhere is safe, exactly. Nowhere is entirely friendly. And the darkness generates dark creatures, who lie in wait for the incautious or hunt on the fringes of their inky black domains, or simply are.

Not all of London's predators are natives, however. Some come from far off places, drawn to the fog wraithed streets above and the enticing darkness below. The two creatures who call themselves Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar, for instance, were spawned in a place so far off, and so long ago, that they themselves may have forgotten their origins.

On the other hand, they may not.

_"Please! Please!"_

Life is cheap in London Below, unless it is your own, when its value is beyond price. Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar know this. It would be dull otherwise. There have been times and places, rarely, in the history of the world, where people died easily and without fuss, accepting the fates allotted to them. These environments were, as Mr Vandemar had put it whilst in the throes of an extremely bad temper tantrum, no fun at all. Mr Croup had agreed, but had pointed out that it was their sacred duty to ensure that such attitudes were not allowed to fester, to spread, to taint those cultures where a healthy desire to stay alive at all costs was able to flourish. Fortunately, if not entirely coincidentally, there are no longer any such civilisations on the face of the earth. If you wanted to go looking for one, London would certainly not have been a likely candidate.

_"Please don't... Don't!"_

Taking commissions is a relatively new experience. Mr Croup originally liked the delicacy of it; restricting themselves to the single, or indeed multiple, victims out of all the people that he and Mr Vandemar could be killing right now, and moreover doing so at someone else's direction. However it is a novelty which after a few hundred years is starting to wear off. Like any sort of self denial, it is only truly satisfying when the climax finally arrives.

_"Aaaahhhhhhh..."_

Mr Croup does not understand very much about the desire to fornicate. Doubtless it is more comprehensible if one was born to this shape. As a specialist in agonising torment beyond endurance, precursor to grisly death, he naturally knows a great deal about non-standard uses for orifices and about the sensitivity of particular bodily parts. The bodies of his victims are violated when that is appropriate, usually by whatever happens to be closest to hand. He knows the urge to hurt, and the thrill that is pleasure in causing misery, and the satisfaction that comes from the utter destruction of another being. But sexual desire, arousal, fulfillment; that is too human to be anything but alien to him. To both of them. Or so he has always believed.

He is therefore somewhat discombobulated to wake shortly before dawn in the small but surprisingly comfortable nest constructed of dirty newspapers and empty bottles that they have borrowed for the night, to find that the raggedly dressed small person of indeterminate gender that they had borrowed it from is no longer wriggling hogtied and alone on the floor awaiting their amusement over breakfast but is currently undergoing a squealing and clearly unasked for buggery at the hands and one other, hitherto unimagined, part of Mr Vandemar.

"What are you doing?" Mr Croup asks, the almost unprecedented directness of the approach revealing his bewilderment.

Mr Vandemar looks across at him with a lupine glare. He does not reply. Nor does he stop. His sharp canines, however, show, briefly.

Mr Croup considers the situation. 

He does not command Mr Vandemar. Far from it. He suggests, he tweaks, he clarifies, he tugs, sometimes, in a particular direction, but he does not prescribe. He most certainly does not insert any part of himself between his partner and bleeding prey. Disconcerted though he most certainly is by this unexpected development, it would be foolhardy to attempt to interfere in what is happening. Mr Croup is not foolhardy. He lies back in the rustle of old news and closes his eyes, feigning sleep. In another five minutes the small person is dead and Mr Vandemar has a remarkable appetite for breakfast.

The subject is not discussed. Not them, not on any of the subsequent occasions over the next day. Mr Vandemar has acquired a new predilection, and he sates it with a regularity that would be astonishing in the type of personage that he appears at first glance to be. Fortunately London Below is crowded with the helpless and the easily missed, and leaving a trail of mutilated bodies is hardly new territory for the assassins.

 

Finally,

"I want..." Mr Vandemar pants, when he is indulging himself, like a dog. A particularly savage dog. His teeth are yellowish and very sharp. 

"someone..." He speaks to Mr Croup, who is watching him, still somewhat nonplussed at this transmogrification.

"pretttttyyyyyyy..." The last word becomes a howl. He drops the limp body- this time he has been experimenting with necrophilia. Mr Croup could have told him in advance that he would find the passivity of the dead considerably less gratifying than the writhing of the living. He may not understand fornication but he understands how Mr Vandemar's mind works.

"Someone pretty," he repeats back, watching the flushed red and oversized genitals disappear back into Mr Vandemar's trousers. Since Mr Vandemar appears to have a refractory period of approximately fifty minutes, they are likely to reappear inconveniently soon. This new hobby is all very diverting, Mr Croup thinks, but they do have an employer to satisfy. They are supposed to be finding the girl, and the Marquis, and the upworlder, and Hunter.

"All of whom, it might be asseverated, qualify as pretty, at least compared to the grubby remnants of humanity that you have been inserting your membrum virile into with such bewildering enthusiasm. Shall we go in search of them, Mr Vandemar?"

"I want the prettiest one. Then I want the others."

Mr Croup has yet to work out how the specific and unsatisfactory instructions from their employer can be reconciled with Mr Vandemar's burgeoning appetites. He will concern himself with that when they catch up with the pretty little fugitives. For the moment he is satisfied to have Mr Vandemar's attention back on the chase.


End file.
